GOVERNMENT AND LANGUAGE. 201 been given as wives to neighbouring kings or to the great nobles of Uganda.

The administration of justice has already been described. The punishments which are inflicted are imprisonment in the stocks, mutilation, and death.

The stocks consist of a heavy block of wood with a hole in it through which the foot is placed, and a peg is driven in which prevents it being withdrawn.

This is a punishment confined to small offences, such as petty thefts and insubordination on the part of wives or slaves. Theft is punished frequently by cutting off the hands, ears, or nose. Adultery is punished invariably by death, and murder occasionally, but more often only by a fine. The Waganda have a variety of modes of execution, some of them being horribly barbarous. Beheading and strangling are those commonly employed, and human sacrifices are always beheaded. For the worst offences the victim is bled slowly to death by gashing the body with sharp splinters of a reed, care being taken to avoid the larger arteries and veins. A small army of executioners is kept in Mtesa's employment, and some of them are always in attendance at court. They wear ropes round their heads, or a hideous fringe of grass, which adds to the ferocity of their looks.

The prestige of the Waganda as a nation rests mainly upon their warlike character, which tinges the whole of their life and government. As already mentioned, every man who can handle a spear and